Caste away

It's 1am, and the stream of visitors to Mumbai's red-light district of Kamathipura is thinning out. For more than six hours, Ramani has been sitting on a stool in the brightly lit doorway of one of the brothels on the main street, waiting in vain for her first customer of the night.

'In the past three days, I have only had one customer. It's because I am not among the most attractive girls here any more. But where shall I go now? I cannot beg on the street at this point in life,' said the 27-year-old prostitute, her face painted with garish makeup.

Ramani did not choose her profession. From the age of three, until she was 17, she was what is known in India as a devadasi - a girl given to a temple as a religious offering to serve the temple deity, so her family can be blessed with good luck.

Literally, 'devadasi' means 'servant of god'. But once she became a devadasi she had to give sexual favours to men in the local community.

'When I was three, my poor parents offered me to Yellamma [a popular deity in the south Indian state of Karnataka] and I became a jogamma,' she said, referring to the other term for a devadasi which means holy girl or holy woman. 'At 17, because of my two illegitimate children I was forced to become a prostitute, and at 27 I am nearing an end of my life because of HIV, amid this filth.'

Ramani's story is similar to that of thousands of prostitutes in Mumbai, where an estimated 60,000 women and children operate in Kamathipura and other identified red-light districts. At least a quarter are estimated to be former devadasis and half or more of the city's prostitutes are HIV positive.